My Journey: Getting to Medical School

Hi everyone! My name is Jessica and I am honored that I was asked by Merck Manual to tell the story of my journey to medical school and beyond. I have decided to start from the beginning and through a series of posts, I will tell you about my experiences first getting to medical school and now getting to residency.

Unlike many in medicine, I did not grow up knowing I was going to be a doctor. I had always loved math and figured I would become an accountant like my dad. It wasn’t until my parents decided to move us from Canada to North Carolina while I was in high school that I really gave my career aspirations any thought. I had always loved math and science and decided that maybe medicine would be a career I would enjoy. Throughout the rest of my high school career, I spent my summers exploring the career of medicine and ultimately decided that I wanted to become a doctor of osteopathic medicine (D.O.).

The time came to apply to colleges and I was fortunate enough to receive an acceptance into the Honors College at East Carolina University (Go Pirates!). The next step was to decide on a major. I loved both biology and chemistry and felt guilty choosing one over the other. I was told majoring in both would be extremely difficult but I decided to do it anyway. Throughout my time in college, I decided to tutor general chemistry, become a general chemistry lab TA, be an active leader in our campus’ chemistry club, and work in an analytical chemistry lab. With that, I am extremely proud to say that I managed to graduate on time with bachelor’s degrees in both biology and chemistry with honors.

But, applying to medical school was a whole other beast. I had scheduled my MCAT during the semester when I was taking physical chemistry along with other higher level biology courses and unfortunately put studying for the MCAT on the back-burner. I managed to score a 25 (500 for the new exam) and decided that I would just retake it if I didn’t get into med school the first round. After applying late and with my average MCAT score, I felt extremely blessed when I was granted acceptance to the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine campus in Georgia. My dreams of becoming a doctor were finally coming true!

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Jessica Biller, DO

DO at PGY-1

Jessica is a surgical intern after graduating from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in May 2018.
After moving to the US from Canada in high school, Jessica soon fell in love with medicine, particularly osteopathic medicine, and decided to pursue it as a career. Her interest in surgery began with her love for anatomy and was further solidified during her third-year surgery clerkship when she discovered the OR is something she could not live without.

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